


A Testimonial To Survival

by WhisperElmwood



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Apocalypse, Death, End Of World Event, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Minor Character Death, Other relationships are planned, Violence, zombies - sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-11
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-30 23:31:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/337378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhisperElmwood/pseuds/WhisperElmwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new plague sweeps the world, killing two thirds of the population within months, leaving the remaining third evenly split between those naturally immune, and those who survived the plague but were irrevocably changed by the experience. This is the story of how John kept his head in a crisis and got himself and his new friends out of London.</p><p>This story starts after 'The Blind Banker' and goes AU from there.</p><p>Slightly spoilery notes at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

** Prologue **

\---

So, Dim sum.

Hrm, I can always predict the fortune cookies.

No you can’t.

Yes I can. - You did get shot though.

What?

In Afghanistan, there was an actual wound.

Oh, yeah, shoulder.

Shoulder! I thought so.

No, you didn’t.

The left one.

Lucky guess.

I _never_ guess.

Yes you do. - What you so happy about?

Moriarty.

What’s a Moriarty?

Absolutely no idea.

\---

_“A new contagion appears to have broken out in China in the past week.”_

John only half pays attention to the news as he carefully places each part of the Sig Sauer in its position, with the practiced movements of a long time, well trained and proud soldier. He picks each piece up, barrel to magazine, and wipes it down, removing every hint that it had been so recently fired and places it back on the table, maintaining the meticulous order. He could do this far quicker if he cared to, but he takes his time over it, making sure to miss nothing.

_“It appears that China is taking military action in response to the epidemic, using any measure to prevent anyone from disseminating information to the wider world. Amateur footage has, however, leaked to the internet and appears to show the contagion is widespread; hundreds, if not thousands, can be seen crowding the hospitals, surgeries and any practice that offers medical aid.”_

Sherlock ignores the television completely, apparently preferring to watch as John works, from his perch in the leather and chrome armchair already claimed for his own. John glances at his new flatmate – friend? – flicks his gaze to the television as the amateur  footage is shown, taking in the sight of panicked and desperate people, then returns his attention to the gun, finally beginning to put the pieces back together.

_“Reports so far are not clear on the exact nature of the contagion. Unlike the recent Bird-Flu scare, it appears to attack the nervous system. Symptoms appear to begin with tremors, escalate to fits and culminate in coma.”_

John slots the magazine back into place, the final piece of the three dimensional puzzle and hefts the gun, checking the weight and balance against his knowledge of the weapon. After a moment, he places it on the table and begins to collect together the cleaning apparatus. He feels Sherlock’s gaze following his every movement, but doesn’t look up, simply continuing with the practiced, almost calming gestures.

_“As yet, the contagion appears to be contained to China and there are reportedly no deaths. The UN has made an offer to China of medical care, equipment and personnel. However, China has so far continued to deny there is even a problem.”_

When the kit has been completely packed and rolled away, John picks up the Sig Sauer again, makes sure the safety is on and tucks it in the waistband of his jeans. Looking up, he catches Sherlock’s eye as the Consulting Detective collects together the various detritus – tissues and cotton-swabs – before stepping back to the fireplace and methodically dropping each piece into the fire. Each piece hisses and spits for a moment, the bright light from the flames catching in Sherlock’s dark curls and on his high cheekbones.

_“The ECDC will be meeting later this week to discuss preventative measures against the spread of this contagion to Europe. Talks will include the British Health Minister as well as leading British and European Pathologists.”_

John moves to sit in his armchair across the fire from Sherlock. For a moment, he simply watches as Sherlock prods the oiled cloth further into the fire with the poker, watches as it hisses into flame, acrid smoke sucked into the chimney. With a small smile, he lets loose a sigh and heaves himself back to his feet, “I’ll put the kettle on.”

_“In other news...”_


	2. The disregarding of the survival mechanism

A week and a half after Sherlock Holmes found the Jade pin - ensuring the woman who had been wearing it unknowingly for weeks, a new cushy life - John Watson clomped unhurriedly down the stairs to find him draped over the sofa.

He was dressed in pyjamas and his blue striped dressing gown; eyes closed, his face was set in the kind of expression John normally expected to see on the faces of recalcitrant three year old patients, dragged unwillingly into the surgery by exasperated parents. An apt description of Sherlock Holmes when he was having one of his _days_ ; and it certainly looked like he was having one of them.

Pausing in the doorway, to properly take in the sight of his friend petulantly sulking on the sofa, John smirked, shook his head and moved a little less noisily into the kitchen.

“Dr Venkatesan called in sick today, so I’ll be going into work in his place,” he said over his shoulder as he first checked the kettle was clear and then filled it, before similarly checking the tin of tea-bags. Living with Sherlock had sort of become a game of hide-the-disgusting-thing-and-wait-to-see-John’s-reaction. It wasn’t a game he particularly enjoyed, truth be told.

The best thing about the whole Jade pin nonsense – and it _was_ nonsense, when he got right to the point of it, nonsense that had resulted in far too many unnecessary deaths - had been the pay cheque from Sebastian Wilkes. The money meant they actually had enough to pay the bills _and_ eat for the next three months. Which, really, had taken a lot of weight off John’s shoulders; as far as he could tell, Sherlock thought of himself as being above such things as money and bills.

As a consequence, John didn’t exactly need to work right now, though he did anyway. His personal morals on the issue made him uneasy when unemployed, feeling like a loose end and uncomfortable with even Sherlock’s offered help with money; and while he enjoyed the work with Sherlock, he didn’t yet feel like it was _work_. There was absolutely nothing to fault about bringing in some extra money until the next paying case either, especially when he considered the fact that he _wanted_ to work, _wanted_ to feel as if he was making a difference – even if only a small one – in someone’s life.

Occasionally, he wondered how everyone would react if he applied at St Bart’s, took on a position in the Emergency Department, maybe; he was more than qualified, had more than enough experience with triage, emergency surgery, dealing with shocked and devastated patients.

And he missed the work sometimes, mostly on those days when Sherlock was declaring his boredom and all John had to look forward to was treating patients who had colds and insisted on antibiotics, or kids with dickey tummies. It would perhaps leave him with less time to follow Sherlock on his cases, but he could work around it – do shift work, maybe, three days/nights on, four off.

John snorted softly, shook his head at himself and got on with checking the sugar bowl.

Mycroft had been right, all those weeks ago, when he told him he missed the war. He had been bloody right, and if John hadn’t met Sherlock, he hated to think where he’d be by now.

Sherlock either didn’t hear or chose not to respond - with him it was an even chance either way - so John simply went about his way making tea. He made two mugs, after making sure neither had recently contained anything disgusting or corrosive, out of the same habit that had him checking the kettle and sugar bowl and carried them both in to the living room, placing Sherlock’s within easy reaching distance on the coffee table before he dropped carelessly into his armchair.

For a moment, he studied his friend’s profile, taking in the slight bags under his eyes, the pout of his lips, the completely wayward tumble of his deep-chocolate curls. With Sherlock’s eyes closed, John felt a little safer studying him than he would whilst he was up and about. He looked tired, as well as fed-up, which was nothing new after a case – though normally, by this point, Sherlock would be complaining rather than pouting – he also looked every bit as young as John sometimes forgot he was. John looked for as long s he dared, enjoying the rare – if strange – moment of quiet, before deciding he was being ridiculous and looking away.

With a soft sigh, he pulled his gaze from his friend and balanced the newspaper precariously over his lap, flicked it open. He had a little while before he needed to get ready, more than enough time to finish his tea, read some of the paper and fix himself a snack to eat on the way to the surgery.

“Did they say what he’s sick with?”

At the non-sequitur, John glanced up and over, to see that Sherlock had turned his head to look at him, eyes now open, an enquiring expression on his face.

“Sorry, what?” He flipped a page over, looking for the international news, training his gaze back on the text.

“Dr Venkatesan. Did they say what he’s ill with?”

John blinked, looked back up again. “No. Just that he is.” He paused, “What’s this about, Sherlock? It’s not exactly uncommon for doctors to contract all sorts of things from their patients – you know that.”

Sherlock didn’t react beyond a small hum, so after a moment of silence, John went back to the paper and his tea. A couple of minutes later he heard Sherlock texting away in his usual rush, so he settled back and considered the matter dropped entirely.

Later, when he was pulling his jacket on, sliding the strap of the messenger bag over his shoulders, Sherlock surprised him with an urgent, “Be careful John, more so than usual. Remember the sanitation procedures, infection control, so on.”

“Really Sherlock, it’s probably just a cold. I’ll be fine.”

Sherlock rolled to his feet, “Humour me, John.” And with that he strolled into the kitchen and out of sight, a dramatic swirl to his dressing gown as he went. John shook his head and zipped up against the cold.

\---

Sherlock’s insistence on following proper sanitation procedure – not that John would shirk such a duty in the first place - made more sense by midday.

John dealt with the usual glut of patients; he saw everything from hypochondria to gout in a three hour stint. Two of the hypochondriacs came in completely certain they had contracted whatever it was China and most of Asia had gone down with; hands shaking and voices stuttering, they spent their five-to-ten minutes with him quietly insistent.  

The thought was mildly alarming, but John had known them of old and they showed no other signs of having contracted the contagion; in fact one appeared simply to be fatigued, the other perfectly healthy in every way. By this point, the ECDC had sent extensive reports on the symptoms and effects of the illness to every GP surgery, Health centre, Hospital and Private Clinic in the British Isles, so he knew what to look for, if not exactly what to expect.

Just as a precaution, John ordered blood tests for them both, told them to book a follow up appointment for the same time next week and then made sure to wash his hands and wipe down every surface they’d touched. The only problem was that no-one had yet figured out how the disease was being spread, whether it was air born or passed through physical contact or even by parasites. Still, wiping the place down couldn’t hurt anyone.

Other than that, his day continued pretty normal. He ate his lunch with a couple of the nurses – Sarah wasn’t talking to him, hadn’t since their disastrous first date, and he couldn’t really blame her after the kidnapping and near death experiences – helped one of the other Locums with a difficult patient and then, amongst all the others, separated by five other patients, saw two more patients scared that they’d contracted the new illness.

The second two he was more inclined to be concerned about. He ordered blood tests, neurological exams, checked them over, prescribed them some medication and told them if the symptoms persisted, they were to go to the nearest hospital. Worryingly, they weren’t connected; they didn’t live on the same street or work in the same area, there was no way these two people could have contracted the same illness at the same time, unless it was out there and being further spread by unknown carriers – worse, they weren’t even in the same age range and were otherwise entirely healthy.

Knowing Sherlock liked to hear about these things, he took mental note of them both in order to tell him when he got home. Much as he thought it may be stroking his friends ego to be confirming his earlier worries, he couldn’t help but wonder if Sherlock had already been working on the spread of the contagion, if he knew anything about it – if, indeed, Mycroft had asked him to look into it.

The two hypochondriacs, so certain they had contracted the new illness, had been mildly concerning, the two patients who really appeared to have contracted it were far more so. He was even more diligent in cleaning his room, his hands and everything they had or may have touched.

By the end of his shift, one of the patients waiting to be seen had fallen into a fit and been rushed to Hospital and two of his fellow doctors had begun to complain – quietly, and only to the other doctors – that they were feeling slight tremors through their limbs, the first sign that they may have contracted the illness.

The ride home was sobering. The _morning_ ride had been only slightly less packed than any other morning rush to work and there had been very few signs of any encroaching panic. On the way home, however, passengers on the underground were split between scared looking people wearing face masks and rubber gloves, people already succumbing to tremors and people huddling alone as far away from any other person as they could possibly get. As the trains were almost empty, that wasn’t hard.

John sat alone near one of the doors, quietly assessing every other passenger, trying not to touch anything with his bare skin, even as he internally berated himself for his paranoia.

The streets as well, were sobering. Despite the chilly, wet, overcast weather, people were either ignoring everyone else, hurrying with facemasks held to their faces or obviously on their way home after panic buying food, water and survival equipment.

John stumbled, hands shooting out to slam roughly against the nearest wall, phantom pain shooting through his thigh, as a man holding a DIY nose-mouth mask to his face, eyes wide and furtive, almost knocked him over in his hurry to get past. The man paused only for a second, before he turned and rushed on.

Rubbing his hands on his thighs, an attempt both to remove the brick-grit scraped into them after his scramble to stay upright, and rub the pain out of the muscle, John watched the man until he turned a corner. He straightened his shoulders, hands tucked into his pockets, protecting them from further damage; John sighed and continued on his way, thoroughly disgruntled by the return of his limp.

By the time he reached 221B, he was ready to leave London himself, the city was too big, too close; the risk of infection too high. He knew, however, that he was needed where he was – both because of his medical expertise and because Sherlock needed him around. Knowing Sherlock, the man wasn’t going to leave until the very last moment, and even then it would be extremely unwillingly.

“Did you follow procedure?”

Sherlock was actually dressed when John stepped into the flat, leg aching after the long walk and seventeen stair climb. Dressed meant Sherlock’s mood had picked up, which was definitely a good thing, Sherlock bored to the point of depression was always a disconcerting thing to see. He shucked his bag and jacket; dropped the former without a thought, placed the latter on the coat-hanger beside Sherlock’s. “What?”

He entered the kitchen, headed for the sink; Sherlock looked up from the microscope and watched him. “Did you follow infection control procedures?”

John smiled, though Sherlock couldn’t see it, as he washed and disinfected his scraped hands; “Yes Sherlock, I am a trained medical professional. It continues to fail to amaze me that you forget that. Tea?”

Sherlock grunted, turned back to the microscope, “I never forget that, John. No thank you.”

John chuckled, shook his head in amusement as he moved the few steps to the nearest tea-towel.

“Did you at least get a look at the face of the young man who pushed you? Or was he taking advantage of the panic and hiding his features with a mask?”

John wiped his hands dry, draped the towel back over the oven handle and reached for the kettle, as he dropped a teabag in his mug, “Just a random encounter. Nothing to worry about.”

Sherlock eyed him, gave him the look usually reserved for mentally dissecting corpses, his eyes narrowed and searching, “The public unrest is such that a man in his twenties ignores social mores and doesn’t even apologise when he knocks an obvious war veteran into a wall?”

John snorted, turned and opened the fridge; he plucked the almost empty milk bottle from the shelf as the kettle boiled, “Just a scared kid, Sherlock. Not like there was any real issue, it’s not much of a problem anyway, I’m used to it.” He certainly didn’t think of himself as an ‘obvious war veteran’ either. Maybe Sherlock could sus him out after a five second glance, but the average person on the street? No.

As he clicked the kettle off and poured, stirring the brew to get the teabag moving, Sherlock hummed in obvious annoyance but turned back to his experiments, “You should cancel your cards, John.”

John turned, shocked – though he supposed he shouldn’t have been, by this point – patted his pockets, “Seriously, Sherlock? A pick-pocket?” Ignoring his tea, he moved quickly to his coat, checked the pockets, “Bloody hell! He took my wallet!”

“Yes. ‘Random encounter’ indeed. Call the bank; you can use my card for now.”

The Detective didn’t even look up from the microscope as he spoke, simply twisted one dial delicately.

“Sherlock! This is – oh, never mind.” His mood completely diminished, John dug his phone out of his pocket.

“Don’t forget to call the police. If you can give them a description..?”

John sighed, ran a hand over his face, through his hair; “No, no, you were right, he was holding a mask to his face.”

How the hell could have he missed it? How could he be so distracted that he didn’t realise the kid hadn’t tripped, or wasn’t watching where he was going, but was pulling a really very common con? Sometimes John felt ridiculously stupid, despite knowing he wasn’t in the slightest. Part and parcel of living with a genius, he supposed.

\---

After a conversation with his bank, a longer one with the police, during which he promised to go to the station first thing to make a statement (he had a feeling Lestrade was going to rib him about this the next time they saw him) John finally had his tea and settled on the sofa to relax. He ignored Sherlock, still puttering about with his experiments; John couldn’t even be bothered to tell him about the possible plague victims from work.

Maybe he’d tell him tomorrow, when he felt a little better disposed towards people in general. Right at the moment, his usually unflinching belief that the majority of humanity was predisposed to at least general goodness, had – well – flinched a fair bit.

Getting comfortable, he switched the telly on and flicked until he found something he could ignore. He dropped the remote next to his leg, picked up the book he’d been reading in stops and starts over the past few days and settled back for a good read.

Half an hour later, his attention was caught by the News theme. __

_“In the past hour, the ECDC has issued a statement regarding the spread of the illness, Chenman disease, taken from the Chinese name for it – better known as Shaking Sickness.”_

John looked up at the screen and lay the book pages down on his thigh to keep his place. The News reader was replaced by an officious looking, middle-aged man in a cheap suit, his eyes shifted constantly from a sheaf of A4 pages, tidily wedged together on a glass podium, and the camera.

_“Current preventative measures in place to stop the spread of the Zhen-Mian disease are holding true; however, precautions will need to be taken to maintain that blockade. Travelling should be kept to a minimum, and only for emergencies. Transport between countries is being shut down until the threat has been isolated. It is advised that simple precautions are utilised when travelling within the country – for instance use masks, gloves, anti-septic wipes and maintain infection control._

_If you begin to exhibit symptoms, such as uncontrolled shaking of the limbs, go to the nearest GP or A &E as soon as possible. They will be able to either diagnose, rule out, or treat the condition.”_

The picture changed back to the news readers and moved on.

“Hrm. Mycroft’s control of the media is continuing absolute.”

John jumped. He hadn’t noticed Sherlock had come over to watch the news alongside him, “Jesus Sherlock, don’t do that. And what?”

Sherlock nodded at the telly, even as he returned to the kitchen and his experiments. “Mycroft. As I said, he is the Government. He has more than enough control to contain the media.”

John snorted, flicking channels again, looking for another ignorable program to read through, “Your brother has an almost scary amount of power.”

He felt, more than saw Sherlock give him a disbelieving glare, “I said _almost_.”

Sherlock snorted in reply, and continued; “I want a blood sample, John.”

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is where things are going to start coming to a head, so bare with me :D
> 
> I am not a medical professional, I have no medical knowledge to speak of to tell truth, so any problems you spot here, they are my own and if you think you can help me sort them out? Please do get in contact and let me know, as I don't have a BETA.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is going to involve 'Reaver' type zombies, just a warning. (If you don't know what Reaver's are, look them up in the Firefly Fandom - or think along the lines of mindless, canibilistic, murderous, extremely violent, immune to pain people with their personalities and memories completely gone.)
> 
> This fic took me on a whim after I watched a couple of zombie movies and started reading 'The Prize' - my other fics are still being worked on, I'm just working on this as well now. 
> 
> Somebody needs to shoot my muse, obviously.


End file.
